Birmingham Metropolitan College (BMet) is one of the largest colleges in the UK, offering a range of academic and vocational courses to more than 35,000 learners each year. Employing over 1,350 people, BMet has three main campuses and several satellite centres. The college prides itself on remaining at the forefront of advances in education, thereby delivering a transformational learning experience to its students.

Business need:

Birmingham Metropolitan College (BMet) is constantly seeking new ways to engage students and make education accessible to a more diverse user base. In order to synergise with the digital lifestyle of learners and compete in different markets, the college recognised that it needed to transform how it delivered learning.

Solution:

Embarking on a strategic relationship with IBM, BMet began building “Classroom in the Cloud”, based on IBM SmartCloud® for Social Business. When the project is complete, up to 25,000 students and 1,350 staff will be able to use the solution to access learning through a variety of mediums including the web and smart phones.Components:

The IBM Social Business FastTrack solutions each include a well defined services process and custom built, single environment, social software installation on VMware. These solutions are delivered by IBM

Software Services for Collaboration production-ready and typically within a week.

Remove implementation barriersThese solutions are designed to remove technical implementation barriers and put you on the fast track to becoming a social business with the lowest cost, lowest complexity, and fastest deployment methodspossible. Take advantage of your IBM collaboration software with an ultra-rapid deployment via a series of customized, pre-built VMware images. By significantly reducing the implementation time yourorganization can quickly unlock the business value of IBM social software.

The best value and lowest riskThe Collaboration Services mission is to deliver the experience you need to get the highest possible return on investment with the lowest risk to your business as possible. The experts from Collaboration Services work with thousands of collaboration software clients around the world, helping them achieve quantifiable business results. By providing these FastTrack solutions Collaboration Services is able to deliver these results to your organization in record time.

A social business embraces and cultivates a spirit of collaboration and community – internally and externally – delivering unprecedented return for the time invested.

FastTrack solutions availableQuickly and easily connect teams, customers, and partners and provide effective tools for knowledge exchange and communications. Each solution includes the required IBM application and database servers and can be integrated with your existing LDAP directory. Several FastTrack solutions are available based on your business needs:

IBM® Connections FastTrackTake advantage of any combination of the IBM® Connections capabilities, including Files, Profiles, Blogs, Wikis and more, to connect and collaborate with your professional network.

IBM Sametime® FastTrackUtilize any combination of the IBM Sametime® capabilities, including instant messaging, online meetings, video conferencing and more, to take action across your organization.

IBM Collaboration Center FastTrackAn integrated solution can be delivered with any combination of the following products:

Extension of IBM Software Accelerated Value Program smoothes operation of social technologies

"One great benefit of the program is that the Accelerated Value Leader
provides a rapid route into the IBM organization, helping us quickly
find the appropriate person to assist us with issues and questions
around our portal installation." - Anette Andreasson, Head of IT
(Domino), City of Gothenburg

Here is an interesting blog article to share with you. Larry Bowden, Vice President of Portals and Web Experience Software, recently spoke with Colleen Burns to discuss IBM's recent announcement concerning the next generation of Exceptional Web Experience solution offerings: Customer Experience Suite and the Intranet Experience Suite. ISSC has some exciting offerings in development that will complement these offerings we hope to share with you in the future, but for now, take a look at this interview.